The Dog Moon

This month's full moon post comes a little late because I was on vacation on the coast. If you want to go to a nice beach on the Texas coast, I highly recommend Padre Island National Seashore. It's run by the National Park System, so you know it's good. Clean beaches almost totally free of trash, clean water, lots of birds and fish. Definitely the beach for nature lovers rather than rowdy college students on summer break.

Don't forget your sunscreen, though. I'm paying for that mistake right now.

This is not what I expected when I came home from vacation. I watered everything really well before we left, but when we got home the birdbath was dry again, which may explain why SOMETHING chewed a hole right through my tray of fall seedlings! At least, that's the only thing I can think of that could have done this. Maybe some thirsty squirrel was trying to get to the water in the tray underneath. Tore up a lot of the seedlings too, especially the chard and broccoli raabe. The cauliflower and collards are still mostly ok. I guess I'll have to do some replanting.

The California Wonder bell peppers continue to surprise me with how well they're doing on once-a-week water rations. They're even working on growing some fruit. I wonder if it's because they're on the edge of the garden near enough to a tree to get some afternoon shade.

Some of the tomatillos have died, but most are still hanging in there. I guess I'll just have to see if any make it through to fall.

Sadly, most of the fall tomatoes haven't made it. I have one Bloody Butcher left and maybe three or four Cherokee Purples. Oh well, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

I planted my fall eggplant too, and they're looking a bit yellow. Fingers crossed.

The basil is doing ok, but flowering a lot from the stress.

I think the next thing I'm going to sacrifice are the cowpeas. I think it's really unlikely I'll get any sort of decent harvest from them, so might as well quit wasting water on them.

The fall peppers are mostly doing ok, but they're still really small in their pots. I wonder if I should try planting them at all, or try overwintering them in containers and planting them in the spring. Peppers always grow so slowly from seed for me. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if that's how they usually are.

This full moon was called the Dog Moon, after the Dog Days of Summer, which are named after Sirius the Dog Star, brightest star in the sky (it's actually a binary star system). This is supposed to be the hottest time of year, but with how hot it's been, I can't see how it can get any hotter. We've already broken plenty of records and will probably break some more before it finally cools down.

It will cool down some day, won't it?